As digital technologies become a more pervasive part of everyday life, there is a growing need to unlock consumer and industry value by removing barriers that prevent users from transporting and accessing their data—particularly their personal data and digital identities—while continuing to respect user privacy, according to a new combined World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Report — Expanding Participation and Boosting Growth: The Infrastructure Needs of the Digital Economy.

The next five years are going to be critical for the future of internet and the required digital infrastructure. The world needs to address challenges of bringing the next 1 billion people online, creating a robust infrastructure for the expected explosion in demand and create forward looking policies and ecosystem that allow the dream of 30 billion people + Internet of Things (IoT) devices to be connected and ensure that we create smart cities to improve quality of life for existing urban inhabitants as well as the additional one billion people who are expected to move to urban centres by 2030.